News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Pandemic H1N1 influenza activity decreased for the fourth consecutive week, though the percentage of deaths from pneumonia and influenza rose a bit above the epidemic threshold, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

Jun 3, 2009

(CIDRAP News) – The global novel H1N1 influenza situation is drawing closer to the status of a true pandemic but is not there yet, the World Health Organization's (WHO's) lead spokesman on the issue said today.

"Globally we believe we're in phase 5 but are getting closer to phase 6," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the WHO assistant director-general for health security and the environment, referring to the WHO's pandemic alert phases.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed that a 15-year-old Indonesian boy who died May 30 had H5N1 avian influenza, but the agency said four nurses who had suspicious symptoms after caring for avian flu patients were not infected.

(CIDRAP News) – The revelation that samples of the influenza virus that caused the flu pandemic of 1957-58 were inadvertently sent to thousands of laboratories has raised fears of a new pandemic and triggered an urgent effort to destroy the samples.